


Hands on a Hard Body

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cars, Competition, Competition-Set Fic, Contests, Flirting, Frenemies, Humor, M/M, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:36:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4973491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino and his friend Aiba enter a contest for the chance to win a fancy new car, but a competitor emerges that Nino hadn’t anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The contest in the story is based on an event like [this one](http://www.odditycentral.com/news/man-wins-bmw-after-keeping-his-hand-glued-to-it-for-87-hours.html), where participants have to keep their hands on a car and the last person doing so wins. And the title comes from a [similar endurance contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_on_a_Hard_Body:_The_Documentary).

**SATURDAY — 8:23 AM  
HOUR N/A**

There was a spring in his step when they left the massage parlor. Ninomiya Kazunari was feeling good. No, Ninomiya Kazunari was feeling great. Though the massage therapist had been alarmed by what the pair of them had planned that weekend, there was no way they were backing out now.

Aiba was walking slightly ahead of him, stretching his arms, lifting his knees up high as he walked down the street. Nino just concentrated on breathing, on the knowledge that he was in this to win this. Nobody, not even his best friend, was going to defeat him.

“I’m going to defeat you,” Aiba said anyway, doing more stretches. “You’re going to be crying when I win.”

“Fat chance,” Nino shot back. Aiba had been trash talking him the last week. He’d even sent a bouquet of flowers to Nino’s office, a beautiful arrangement with an attached card that simply read “GONNA KICK YOUR ASS ON SATURDAY.”

Nino adored his best friend, he truly did. They’d been friends since junior high, and they’d always been a little competitive. They’d both played on the high school baseball team, and in that instance, Nino had been declared the winner upon making the roster as a pitcher while Aiba and his slightly weaker arm had been tossed out into left field. They’d both asked out the hottest girl in their grade, but Aiba had been declared the winner since he’d been turned down first. They’d both taken guitar lessons, but Nino had been better at it. Aiba was admitted to the culinary school that rejected Nino. And so on and so forth, Nino victories and Aiba victories, for almost 20 years now. Today was just one more victory set to come Nino’s way, he was sure of it. Aiba didn’t have the dedication, the commitment. Nino was going to outlast him.

They were only a block away, and he could see that a crowd had already gathered for the event. They were corralled behind metal railings that had been covered with massive signs. Men, women, children in sun hats and Ferrari-sponsored oversized t-shirts. Nino could tell that some of the crowd members were relatives or partners of the men and women participating in the contest. He could tell because there was a look of irritation in their faces that didn’t seem to match the upbeat atmosphere around them. There were speakers set up, playing some American hard rock music, and Aiba nodded his head to the beat. Nino just hoped they weren’t planning to slaughter his eardrums with noise the entire time. He needed to be rather zen until this was all over.

_Welcome to Super Touch 2015_ , the banners declared as Nino and Aiba approached the participants’ tent. Nino could already see the five identical cars lined up on the pavement, though of course there would only be one winner. The rules were fairly simple. The contestants selected would each place one hand on a vehicle, and the person who kept his hand there the longest got to keep it.

Super Touch 2015’s grand prize was a brand new Ferrari 488 GTB sports car, which retailed for just over 30 million yen. Aiba, being Aiba, had been spending most of his bragging time explaining to Nino all of the places he’d drive his new car, how many women he’d probably pick up with it, how he’d force Nino to wash it for him with a toothbrush, et cetera. Nino, being Nino, however, was not as lame as his best friend. He’d read the fine print on the Super Touch 2015 website and nowhere did it say that the winner had to actually keep the car. Nino decided he was going to win and then turn around and sell it, making him 30 million yen richer without having to lift a finger. Or, more accurately, lift his hand.

They were met under the entry tent by the annoying marketing guy, who was wearing a fancy ass suit with even fancier ass sunglasses. He had a Bluetooth thing blinking in his ear, but when he spoke, Nino knew he was directing his rage at the two of them. “You were told 8:15,” the guy said, checking his equally fancy ass watch and shooing them away from the general line and over to one of the tables covered in clipboards. “You’re late.”

Nino tried not to laugh, elbowing Aiba beside him. For the last two weeks, ever since the pair of them discovered that they’d been selected to participate, it had been a non-stop hell going back and forth with Matsumoto Jun, SupaLux Autos’ VP of Event Marketing. Matsumoto had already had them sign dozens of forms, had asked for ‘headshots’ to include on the Super Touch 2015 event website, had even begrudgingly confirmed for Nino that he was in fact allowed to sell the car if he won it.

Super Touch 2015 was sponsored by SupaLux, a luxury auto import dealership out of Nagoya, although the contest was being held at Akasaka Sacas, a few blocks from their Tokyo location. The headquarters of TBS loomed over them all, with press people and lanyard-wearing staff and camera people swarming the scene. Matsumoto had more forms for them to sign, most of them medical release forms that said, in essence, that they were participating in the event of their own free will and that SupaLux Autos was in no way responsible for any health problems that resulted from their participation.

Nino signed the form, chuckling under his breath as Matsumoto started yelling at some other folks for arriving “late.” Eventually they were escorted to the “Relax Tent,” where according to contest rules they’d be allowed a five minute break every hour and a fifteen minute break every six. On Aiba and Nino’s forms, there’d been a section authorizing them to invite one guest to the Relax Tent, who could bring them energy drinks, food, or anything else they needed to continue participating. Both of them had enlisted the assistance of Ohno Satoshi, Aiba’s co-worker at the bakery, and though Ohno had a knack for oversleeping, he was already sitting on a bench inside the Relax Tent waiting for them, armed with a backpack.

“Morning,” Ohno said, yawning. He’d had zero interest in winning the Ferrari for himself, as he had no driver’s license, but he’d apparently been quite taken with Aiba’s quest for success and had happily volunteered to help out throughout the day. Nino had originally asked his mother to help him, but she’d turned him down (and had jokingly called him a “fool” and a “disgrace to the family name” for throwing his time away on a stupid contest). He’d thus enlisted Ohno-san as a “take that!” to Aiba, knowing that Ohno was a fair and altogether decent individual, who would help Nino, his co-worker’s friend, just as much as he’d help Aiba himself.

Ohno unzipped his bag, showing the haul that Aiba and Nino had chipped in money to purchase, including some sweets from the bakery for a sugar boost. Though there was a long list of pharmaceutical products that were “outlawed” (Matsumoto Jun had provided a freakishly long list), there were no restrictions on energy shots or natural supplements. Ohno shook a bottle of “Pilot Pal” supplements, apparently a type of capsule used by airplane pilots and college students on deadlines. He also had meds for indigestion and upset stomach, over the counter allergy pills in case one of the cars shot pollen at Aiba for some reason, ibuprofen, multivitamins, and Siberian Ginseng capsules Nino had ordered over the Internet from some dodgy Russian website that he could barely read.

They were totally set.

The Relax Tent was nice and cool, with fans set around the room, SupaLux staff with hand fans at the ready, coolers full of ice, and it was just a short jaunt out of the tent to a line of six port-o-potties. Nino did not particularly enjoy port-o-potties, but with 30 million yen at stake, he’d be willing to pee in a catheter. Happily, such a thing wasn’t required. In fact, it was outlawed, along with super strength adult diapers. Matsumoto had been harping on him and Aiba all week, telling them that unless they had a legitimate medical reason, they had to “piss and shit like a normal human being.” He was a fun guy, Matsumoto Jun. Great at parties, Nino figured.

By quarter to nine, Matsumoto and his expensive sunglasses were back in the Relax Tent clapping his hands for attention, staff swarming around him like worker bees to his Queen Bee. “Good morning, Super Touch 2015 contestants! As a reminder, the last man or woman standing is the victor. We’ve placed stickers on the cars, and all you have to do is keep your hand on it.”

“He looks like one of the guys from Men in Black,” Aiba whispered to Nino, adjusting the Contestant #24 sticker attached to his t-shirt. Nino was Contestant #25.

“Which one? The alien?” Nino whispered back, snickering.

Matsumoto thankfully didn’t hear them. “As you know, there are five cars to accommodate all of you. Per the rules, there will be eight of you assigned to each car, and we’ll be going in numerical order. Which means contestants one through eight will be at car number one, contestants nine through sixteen will be at car number two…”

“No!” Aiba hissed, fingers twisted in his shirt, almost to the point of yanking off his contestant sticker. “No, I want to be with you! This sucks!”

Nino scowled when Matsumoto Jun deliberately looked their way. “Contestants twenty-five through thirty-two, car number four!”

“He split us up on purpose, that asshole,” Nino grumbled, seeing the grin at the corners of Matsumoto’s mouth as he clapped his hands again, wishing them the best of luck.

“At least you’re only a car away,” Aiba complained, stomping his feet, “but I wanted to stand next to you and get the full experience when you collapsed on the ground in defeat at my side!”

“Feeling’s mutual, buddy,” he snorted, wondering if it was too late to trade numbers. But people were already dispersing from the Relax Tent, heading out to check out the cars. They were all putting their hands on older Ferrari models. Nobody wanted to risk a bunch of desperate contestants fingerprinting up or drooling on the grand prize. 

Ohno patted Aiba on the shoulder. “Well you’ll be in here every hour. You can be mean to each other then.”

“That’s true,” Aiba decided. “And then we can spend our time by the cars concentrating on how best to trash each other once we meet up again.”

“Seems logical enough to me,” Nino said. “But I’m going to win, so you’re just wasting your time, old man.”

“I am six months older than you, Nino,” Aiba said, hitting him on the head. “And you’re going to start crying as soon as we get to lunch time, guarantee it.”

Taking sips of water from the bottles Ohno had prepared them, they finally exited the Relax Tent, hearing the crowd cheer as the forty participants slowly approached the five older model Ferraris. While they’d been inside, people from Matsumoto Jun’s team had suspended canvas tent-like cloth over each vehicle, affording them shade during the rather warm September morning. And to presumably keep the cars from getting hot and burning their hands. The forecast was clear for the next two days, although there was a threat of a typhoon on day three. It was expected to blow over, but if there was lightning, the event would be canceled and Nino’s thirty million yen would vanish in a literal flash. He’d been praying all week long for sunny skies and he’d been rewarded. 

Each car was covered with eight handprint shaped stickers — four around the hood, one on each of the windows, and two on the rear of the vehicle. By the time Nino made it over to car number four, there were only a few spots left. Aiba at car #3 was standing by the hood, probably figuring it would be easier to lean or to sit on the ground and still keep his hand up and in place on top of the car. 

Unfortunately everyone else on car #4 had the same idea, leaving only one place on the rear of the car and one of the windows free. He sighed, settling in by the trunk of the car, taking a good, long look at the ugly yellow palm print he’d have his hand on for the next hour, until his break. This was going to be absolute murder on his back, massage notwithstanding, but he was going to get through this. He was going to get through this and he was going to make a ton of money, and he was going to drink Aiba Masaki’s tears when he came back from the bank with his first cashed check, not even letting his friend sit behind the wheel before he sold it. It was a cruel plan and thus a perfect plan.

All was going his way as the minutes ticked away to the 9:00 AM start. All was going his way until he turned to his left and saw the person he was going to be standing next to for the next however many hours. In a black tank top that showed off a nice set of biceps, cargo shorts, and flip flops stood a man with determination in his eyes and handsomeness everywhere else. A round face, plump and pouty “don’t you want to kiss me?” lips…everything about this guy was directly in Nino’s strike zone. 

Shit.

The guy ran a hand through his fluffy hair, offering Nino a mega-watt smile of big bright teeth. “Oh, hello there,” he said in a cheery voice that just about had Nino melting into the pavement. “I’d say good luck, but I don’t want to jinx myself.”

“Hello,” Nino managed to say, wondering if this was what it felt like upon staring into the sun. “Ninomiya.”

“Sakurai,” the guy said, inclining his head. “Let’s have a good fight, how about it?”

Nino’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth. Relax Tent. He needed to get back to the fans and the ice and backpack full of Russian dietary supplements in the Relax Tent. How was he going to get to a zen place when he was going to be stuck next to this guy?

“Yo Nino!” Aiba hollered from car #3, waving.

Nino waved back weakly, and as soon as Aiba looked over a bit more closely, he just nodded his head, feeling assured of his victory. Because what kind of best friend would Aiba be if he didn’t know just the type of person that made Nino weak in the knees?

“Ha!” was all Aiba said once he realized it, turning back to his car and cracking his knuckles.

“You know him?” Sakurai asked, oblivious to Aiba’s reaction and still smiling as he put on a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. The guy did a few final stretches that mostly seemed to involve him leaning against the car and sticking out his ridiculously perfect ass. 

Nino was fucking doomed.

“He’s the person who will lose this contest,” Nino said through gritted teeth, rolling his neck side to side, hearing little cracks that apparently the massage therapist had not managed to tamp down. 

This was going to be a harder-earned victory than he’d planned. But the effort would make the added zeroes in his bank account all the sweeter.

Matsumoto Jun was back with a megaphone. “Let’s start the one minute countdown! Who wants a Ferrari?” he shouted to the roar of the Akasaka Sacas crowd.

—

**SATURDAY — 9:42 AM  
HOUR ONE**

“So what do you do?” Sakurai in the tank top asked.

Nino, eyes closed and with his right palm still firmly planted on his handprint sticker, groaned a little. “Huh?” He’d been in the middle of an elaborate daydream where he was standing at any other car and not the only one in the contest that stuck him beside this disgustingly attractive person.

“For a living,” Sakurai continued, sounding rather jovial about this whole thing. “What do you do for a living?”

“Enter free Ferrari contests.”

Sakurai’s laugh was high-pitched and friendly. “A hardcore participant, I like that. Well, as for me, I work for a food distributor. My company sells Japanese food products to foreign countries, instant noodles and potato chips and candy, almost anything really. We work with Japanese companies of all sorts, and then we handle all the shipping out to other markets. In fact, just yesterday we signed a deal with a distributor in Dubai! That’s in the United Arab Emirates, Persian Gulf region, you know? Sounds like a fun place, Dubai. Anyhow, I was the one who had opened negotiations, so I get to start my vacation on a high note! It’s a three-year distribution deal, actually, and we’ll mostly be shipping out vegetarian items since we don’t have halal certification on most of our products.”

“That sounds…” Nino looked over, eyeing his neighbor again. How could someone who looked like that do something so dull? How could someone who looked like that be so excited about selling instant ramen to the Middle East? He ought to be a TV announcer, a gracefully aging idol. With all that chatter, he could be a politician. “That sounds…like it pays you money.”

Sakurai wasn’t offended. From the blathering he’d already endured, Nino got the impression that Sakurai just liked to talk. Maybe he was the type who would keel over and die if he wasn’t talking. Like a shark who had to keep swimming, but he was a shark that had to talk all the time instead.

“So what do you do, Ninomiya-san?”

“Stand in silence and wait for cars to fall into my lap.”

Sakurai chuckled again, his hand sprawled in an almost relaxed fashion on his handprint. “We may as well get to know each other, since we’ll be standing here together for the next several hours.”

Nino tried to instead listen to the murmurs of the crowd, feeling as though some deity had just handed him a temptation. He was standing beside a really attractive person, sure, but said person was already giving off vibes that screamed of incompatibility. He was hot, but he’d never shut up, and Nino was the type of person who preferred silence if nothing of importance was being said.

“Ninomiya-san?”

It would violate the rules if his car-touching hand became a threatening fist so he offered Sakurai what he hoped was his most polite smile. “I work for a dot-com. Pet products. I keep the website from crashing.”

“Do you have any pets yourself?”

“No.”

Sakurai was undeterred by Nino’s lack of friendliness. “But you work for a company that specializes in pet products?”

“My degree is in computer science, not veterinary medicine.”

Sakurai laughed again. “You’re funny.”

Somehow the other six people with their hands on car #4 weren’t as interesting to Sakurai, and he spent the remainder of the hour talking about himself, offering Nino a laundry list of the countries they sold Japanese food to, from Ghana to Uruguay. Sakurai had a comment on almost every country, informing Nino that he’d been to India before, that Russia was on his “must see” list, that there’d been an exchange student from Hungary at his junior high school that he’d liked. By the time Matsumoto Jun’s noisy voice came shouting through the megaphone, Nino was ready to explode.

“Please excuse me,” he said in a rush, flexing his fingers as he removed his hand from the car and bolted for the Relax Tent.

He found Aiba inside, tugging him into a corner while Ohno dozed on one of the napping benches, snoring while he hugged their backpack full of supplies against himself. “Hey, we’ve got like, four minutes,” Aiba said, whining at the tight grip Nino had on his arm.

“Switch places with me,” Nino begged. “When I win, I’ll give you some of the money I make from selling the car.”

Aiba just laughed. “It’s only been an hour, Nino, and you’re already trying to negotiate? Fat chance!” Aiba flicked him in the forehead with his finger. “I thought you’d be in a better mood, what with Contestant 29-san next to you.”

Nino narrowed his eyes, looking around quickly and not seeing Sakurai nearby. “It’s Contestant 29-san that’s the problem. He won’t shut up!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he was literally talking without stopping for the last fifteen minutes. About selling dried squid to Canada.” He clasped his hands in prayer. “Aiba-chan, please, switch places with me. Please!”

“Can’t you just tune him out? He’s your type right? Does it matter what he’s talking about if he’s got the kind of face you like?”

“I have learned on this day that a pretty face is not enough,” he admitted. Even if that pretty face belonged to a person who also had a pretty mouth and a pretty ass that looked nice and firm like an apple and…

“One minute to go!” came Matsumoto Jun’s voice through his megaphone. “Are you ready? Are you ready, everybody? Who wants a Ferrari?”

—

**SATURDAY — 11:18 AM  
HOUR THREE**

Sakurai had finally cut back on the talking upon entering hour three of Super Touch 2015, presumably because he was getting dehydrated. He still had his hand planted steadily on the car beside Nino, but he’d settled down. It made up for his nearly hour-long one-sided talk from hour 2 that had mostly been focused on a trip he’d taken to Thailand last fall. Nino, feeling blessed with the silence, was feeling better. He’d spent his last five minute break visiting the port-o-potty and then eating two sugary cupcakes from Aiba and Ohno’s bakery, chasing them with a Red Bull. He figured he could last the hour before needing to pee it all out again.

Over at car #3, Aiba had apparently made friends with the three other guys standing around the hood of the car. Nino heard periodic laughter coming from them, Aiba having told him during the quick break that they were all telling dirty jokes to pass the time. Car #4, in comparison, was a dead zone. One of the people by the hood, a woman in her early 20’s, had already quit and hadn’t come back from the break. The three remaining hood hands murmured once in a while to each other, but hadn’t brought anything to protect them from the sun. Even under the canvas, the sun was burning down. The two folks on either side of the car, their hands pressed to the stickers on the glass, were sipping from water bottles with their free hands, the only liquid they were allowed when they weren’t in the Relax Tent.

Nino had already taken a towel from Ohno’s backpack, had wrapped it around his head. Sakurai beside him had made few changes, having come back to the car in the process of rubbing sunscreen on his face and over his arms in the most distracting fashion. Nino made it another twenty minutes, eyes mostly closed and quietly reciting the names of towns and regions from Dragon Quest over and over in an effort to have something to focus on.

“Mostroferrato. Gotha. Evil Mountain. Somnia. Ghent. Zenith Tower…”

“Ninomiya-san?”

He looked over, scowling. Sakurai smiled at him.

“What’s your favorite color?”

Nino blinked at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“Mine’s red!” Sakurai sighed in seeming contentment. “I took this online test, something like ‘what does your favorite color say about you’ and I couldn’t believe the result.”

“Okay.”

Sakurai took Nino’s response to mean “oh yes, tell me more about this online test” and kept on talking. “So I put in that I liked red and it says that I’m bold and sexually charged. Now that’s interesting isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t know you.”

“I mean, just because I have a few red t-shirts and I’m in a contest to win a red Ferrari, I mean, how is that bold? How is that sexually charged? So I sent the test around the office, and my team took it, and would you believe it, I’m the only one who picked red! There were a ton of blues and greens, but nobody else liked red.”

“Heartbreaking,” Nino mumbled, thinking Sakurai might have a good place on some super secret government torture interrogation squad. He was wasting his strengths working for a food distribution company. And Nino really didn’t want to know if Sakurai was going to explain more about how ‘sexually charged’ he was or not.

“So what about you?”

“I’m colorblind,” Nino lied. 

“Oh.”

This shut Sakurai up for at least ten minutes, and Nino reveled in his victory. Until…

“Well what about Myers-Briggs?” Sakurai asked, scratching an itch on his nose with his free hand.

“I don’t know him.”

Sakurai chuckled. “It’s a personality test. There’s sixteen types out there. I’ve done a few tests, and I get the same result every time. So I guess you could say I’m stuck in my ways. I’m an ESTJ!”

“Oh really?” Nino answered. “Well, I’m an F-U-C…”

“Hey Nino!” Aiba was shouting from Car #3. “Listen to this one!”

Nino was nearly saved by the dirty joke told by the guy Aiba was standing next to, until that jerk Matsumoto Jun turned on his megaphone and reminded the participants that there were “children in attendance!”

Sakurai leaned over a bit, rolling his eyes. “Got a bunch of ENFP’s over there, huh?”

—

**SATURDAY — 2:27 PM  
HOUR SIX**

There was about half an hour to go before Nino would be blessed with his first fifteen minute break, and it could not come too soon. Once Sakurai Sho (because he felt the need to share his first name) had explained all sixteen Myers-Briggs personality types to Nino, he’d been motivated to offer celebrity examples of each. Nino almost missed the talk about dried squid by now.

As the sun remained overhead, the crowd had finally started to disperse. It was mostly SupaLux employees lingering around as well as girlfriends and mothers and husbands of the participants. Of the forty hands that had started touching the five Ferraris at 9:00 that morning, only twenty-seven remained. It was moving along rather quickly, and Nino suspected that by nightfall, there’d only be some hardcore folks left. It was the usual way of these things, the lightweights dropping out quickly and then the nutjobs persevering until they won or needed to be hauled off on a stretcher.

Ohno was apparently having a wonderful day in the Relax Tent, his face turning into a miserable scowl each time Nino and Aiba returned and woke him from yet another nap. Nino wished Ohno was more of a malicious person, if he could use his hours in the Relax Tent to sabotage Sakurai Sho in some way. As far as Nino could tell, Sakurai had brought along his sister as his Relax Tent guest, given how much they looked alike in the face. If Nino had his way, he’d have Ohno try and ask her out, to make Sakurai lose focus and defend his sibling. Unfortunately, Ohno preferred napping to cheating.

That left him out in the heat, holding a water bottle to his forehead and praying that Sakurai would finally talk himself to sleep, would slip his hand off the car so Nino could hear the sweet, sweet sound of Matsumoto Jun saying “Ah, I’m afraid that’s all for Contestant 29! Another one bites the dust!”

It was looking increasingly unlikely. As the hours passed and Nino grew more uncomfortable, leaning more heavily against the car and shifting his weight from foot to foot, Sakurai Sho only grew more beautiful. So long as he wasn’t talking, he was still astonishing to look at, and now that he’d been out in the heat this long, his skin was glistening with sweat and he took periodic sips from the water bottle his sister had brought for him. With each chug-a-lug, Nino stared at the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, at the length of his throat, the way he crushed the plastic in his fist and squeezed.

Why did someone so damn annoying have to be so good looking? It was the Devil’s work, Nino was convinced, setting his water bottle down on the car and applying more of the lip cream he’d stolen out of Aiba’s pants pocket at their last break. Aiba caught him this time, feeling his pockets before glaring at Nino.

“I’m going to crush you!” Aiba mouthed at him, but Nino simply applied more lip cream in retaliation.

“Hey Ninomiya-san, have you ever seen the American show Prison Break?”

He exhaled slowly. If he said yes, then Sakurai would probably ask him questions about it. Questions he wouldn’t know the answers to because he’d never seen it. But if he said no, then Sakurai was probably going to spend the remainder of the afternoon spoiling it for him. That was it then. There was no escape.

“No, Sakurai-san, I have not seen Prison Break. And I don’t wish to because prisons are scary.”

“No, no, it’s actually quite good…”

“Not into prisons. Just said I wasn’t, so…”

“This guy, his brother’s going to get the death penalty, but he’s been falsely accused.”

Nino scowled at his neighbor. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear…”

“So the guy, Michael, he’s the main character, he’s this really smart guy and he gets like the entire prison tattooed on his body. But as I said, he’s smart, so it’s not like actual blueprints but a pattern that is pretty much the entire layout of the place. But it still just looks like a tattoo so you really have to be looking closely to figure out what it is.”

“Please stop.”

“So he gets the tattoo and robs a bank so he gets put in the same prison as his brother. I thought that was a little coincidental, you know? But I mean, you already have to be on board with him getting that crazy tattoo of the prison, so…”

“Sakurai-san.”

“And so he hatches this plan to break his brother out from the inside! I mean, I guess you can figure that out from the title of the show but…”

“FOR GOD’S SAKE WOULD YOU SHUT UP?” Nino exploded, but carefully so as not to take his hand off of the Ferrari. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! STOP TALKING! WOULD YOU STOP TALKING, PLEASE? PLEASE, WILL YOU STOP?”

The other people standing quietly around Car #4 looked over in surprise, most of them giving Nino a dirty look. The people standing around Car #3 and Car #5 were equally irritated with his outburst. Aiba, of course, was cackling in glee, presuming his victory was close at hand.

Nino looked down, muttering an apology and having a sip of water. 

Within a minute, Sakurai was talking again and Nino couldn’t detect any distress in his voice, any anger or embarrassment about Nino’s outburst. In fact, Nino thought he saw a wickled little twinkle in the man’s eyes. He continued as though nothing had happened. 

That little twinkle, that was how Nino figured it out. 

Sakurai Sho was smarter than he looked.

Sakurai Sho was not to be underestimated as an opponent.

Sakurai Sho was being _deliberately_ annoying. 

“So now that Michael’s in prison, he discovers it’s not as easy as he thought. He’s going to need allies if he’s going to get all the supplies he needs to help in the escape.” The smile he showed Nino then was just a little too friendly. 

Because Sakurai Sho, with his cheery smile and encyclopedic knowledge of boring subjects, was here to win.


	2. Chapter 2

**SATURDAY — 5:52 PM  
HOUR NINE**

They were the only two left on car number four.

It had been almost three hours since Nino had discovered Sakurai Sho’s oddly impressive Super Touch 2015 strategy: annoy your opponent into taking his hand off the car.

Nino’s strategy, which was simply to conserve energy and to do everything in his power to make Aiba lose first, was not going to help him defeat Sakurai. Because it was increasingly impossible to keep himself in check with Sakurai beside him, twisting the knife and finding endless things to blather on about.

Four seasons of Prison Break. X Japan lyrics (that Sakurai seemed to deliberately mess up in order to piss Nino off further). The titles and authors of every book he’d read since high school.

During the last break, Nino had somehow convinced Aiba to talk to Sakurai’s sister in exchange for getting his lip cream back. He’d discovered that the sister’s name was Mai and she was a school teacher. Now that Sakurai was busy trying to teach Nino a few phrases in Urdu that he’d learned to better communicate with his business contacts in Karachi, Nino thought it was a good time to fight back.

“So is your sister single?”

Sakurai paused, scratching his neck. “I’m sorry?”

“Your sister,” Nino repeated, gesturing with his head behind them to the Relax Tent. “She’s the one keeping you alive today, yeah?”

Sakurai chuckled, although there was a rather scary emptiness to his eyes in that moment. “I’m afraid she has a boyfriend, Ninomiya-san.”

“Oh, I wasn’t asking for me,” Nino said, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s my friend, the guy on car 3.”

When Sakurai looked over, Aiba waved cheerfully, obliviously. Nino hadn’t exactly told his friend that he was planning to throw him under the bus, but in this way he might kill two birds with one stone. He could eliminate the asshole beside him and also rub his continued participation in Aiba’s face once Sakurai got angry and slugged him out of the competition.

“Yeah,” Nino continued, “he was in the tent telling me how hot she is. You know what cup size she is?”

There was murder in Sakurai’s smile then. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Hmm?” Nino asked, humming a little. “Don’t know what you mean. I don’t really have an eye for these things, but my buddy over there, he’s convinced that she’s a D cup at least.”

“You do not want to do this,” Sakurai said, his face turning red with the seeming pressure of keeping a friendly tone to his voice. “You’re making an unwise choice, my friend.”

“I listened to you mangle lyrics for an hour, _my friend_ ,” he snapped. “Now that I’ve got something to say, we’ve got a problem here?”

Sakurai took a deep breath. “You think you’re the only one here that wants to sell that stupid sports car for 30 million?”

Nino narrowed his eyes, waiting for Sakurai to explain himself.

“Because while you were having your friend harass my sister, she was doing some recon of her own. Your friend Ohno-san has loose lips, told her with very little prompting exactly what you’re here to do.” Sakurai grinned again. “I’m not a Ferrari guy, Ninomiya-san, but 30 million yen goes a long way.”

Nino wasn’t entirely sure what he was feeling in that moment. Irritation, sure. Rage, definitely. But somehow, despite it all, he was getting turned on. And it wasn’t just because of Sakurai’s Adam’s apple this time.

“I’m going to beat you,” Nino vowed, pushing his hand onto the sticker so hard he thought he’d dent the car. “If I have to spend the next twelve hours talking about your sister’s tits, I’ll do it.”

Sakurai took a step toward Nino, but stopped when they heard Matsumoto’s megaphone go off, announcing their next five minute break.

—

**SATURDAY — 9:06 PM  
HOUR THIRTEEN**

At the hour twelve break, the fifteen minute one, Matsumoto Jun had announced that SupaLux had catered in dinner for everyone - ramen and sushi and a crate of energy drinks. Nino had turned it all down, watching Aiba waste his fifteen minutes with a giant bowl of ramen. Instead he had taken a quick nap, Ohno fanning him for twelve blissful minutes before he visited the port-o-potty and popped a few of his Pilot Pals.

By hour thirteen, night had long since fallen and Matsumoto’s team had set up some lights to illuminate the cars and the remaining competitors. The lights were really damn bright, which didn’t bode well for Nino’s plan to spend most of the night leaning against the car, dozing in and out. Matsumoto himself was on a break now, apparently napping peacefully in the Relax Tent, megaphone clutched against his designer suit jacket while his subordinates kept circling the cars like vultures, waiting for the next person to drop out.

There were still fourteen people left: two people on car #1, three at car #2, an astonishing five including Aiba on #3, Nino and Sakurai at #4, and two on car #5. While car #4 was the scene of an escalating war, car #3 had all become fast friends. Aiba had told Nino at the break that he’d exchanged email addresses with some of his new buddies, that they’d decided if any of them won that they’d drive the others around in the Ferrari.

“Well too bad none of you will win,” Nino had said, earning a cuff on the head from his increasingly exhausted friend, who kept refusing the Pilot Pals in favor of sugary treats from the bakery. He was probably sugar crashing every hour at this rate, and Nino wondered if Aiba would make it to sunrise. Maybe he’d have Ohno crunch up a few of the Pilot Pals into Aiba’s water, just to keep things interesting. If anyone had to come runner up to Nino, he wanted it to be Aiba, not Satan’s disciple standing beside him.

As the hours passed and Sakurai knew that Nino was on to his master plan, he started to escalate the situation. By hour eleven, though, Sakurai’s voice had started to give out midway through reading the iTunes terms and conditions aloud from his iPhone. Instead of droning on and on about intellectual property and liability limitations, he’d seemingly figured out that Nino liked what he saw when he looked at him.

Because why else had he just returned from their latest five-minute break without his tank top on, taking extra time to stretch and show off the curve of his shoulders, the waistband of his underwear poking out the top of his ugly cargo shorts. Sakurai saw right through him, saw that even though Nino kind of hated his guts, he still couldn’t help being attracted to him.

“I hope a bug swoops in and bites you,” Nino grumbled.

Under the lights, Sakurai had long since given up on his Ray-Bans, running a hand through his sweaty hair and laughing. “So petty.”

“Says the topless man hoping for the ladies on car five to swoon over his pecs and drop out.”

Sakurai turned, seeing the two women who were still at car five and who were, in fact, checking him out. It was hard not to, and Nino couldn’t blame them. “Ah, you think I’m doing this for their benefit, huh?”

Nino shrugged. “It doesn’t benefit them if they lose. You’ve got a strategy tailored for everyone still in this, don’t you?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think any of them are really competing at this level,” Sakurai smiled, thumping their car with his knuckles. “You’re the only one who’s going all the way with me, Ninomiya-san.”

Nino scrunched his nose, not liking Sakurai’s innuendo very much at all. Well, he did like it, which was why he knew he shouldn’t like it. God, his brain was not functioning at full power any longer, twelve minute nap notwithstanding. Still only halfway back mentally from said nap, his eyes burning a little even with his Pilot Pals, he hated the images his brain was using to try and mess with him.

Sakurai with his tank top. Sakurai without his tank top. Sakurai bending him over car #4’s hood and having his way with him while Matsumoto blared through his megaphone about there still being “children in attendance.” Winning the Ferrari and taking his first and last ride in it while Sakurai went down on him, then selling the car and throwing a few thousand yen in Sakurai’s face. It was all quite filthy and distracting, and he wondered if Sakurai could sense that he was weakening.

“You know, they did a BMW contest in China that was kind of like this.”

“Eighty-seven hours,” Nino said, shaking his head.

“Ah, you’ve read about it then?”

Nino clucked his tongue. “Sakurai, I’ve done my research. And that poor sap in China didn’t even get to keep the car, you know. He won the privilege to drive it for five years and then he has to give it back.”

“All in all, we’re getting the better deal, huh?”

Nino looked over, seeing a wry grin on Sakurai’s face. “We?”

“I’ll split it. The thirty million, Ninomiya. I’ll split it with you.”

“Bullshit,” Nino scoffed.

“I’m serious,” Sakurai said, scratching an itch just south of his nipple. “We’re not making it 87 hours, not with the way people are dropping. How about it, if it’s just the two of us left standing, why don’t we take our hands off at the same time?”

“That sounds like something that would piss Matsumoto-san off,” Nino said. “That would kind of make me happy…seeing the look on his face if we fucked up his contest.”

Sakurai chuckled. “Well, think about it. We’ve still got plenty of time.”

“I don’t trust you,” Nino said, snickering. “I don’t trust you at all, you know.”

He was rewarded with another deadly smile. “We’ll see how we feel come morning. What time were you planning to doze off? I’d be happy to sing you to sleep with some more X Japan.”

“You can go fuck yourself,” Nino said cheerfully, ignoring the shooting pain rocketing up and down his spine as he kept his hand firmly in place.

Sakurai Sho was downright evil, but after thirteen hours of it, Nino had come to appreciate him for it. At least his motives were clear. He looked over to Car #3, aglow in the lamplight, saw a tired Aiba still chatting with his new group of friends. He had a sinking feeling that things weren’t going to go as the Car #3 crew had planned.

—

**SUNDAY — 2:04 AM  
HOUR EIGHTEEN**

“I’m sorry, Sho-san.”

He heard a yawn to his left. “Huh?”

“I’m sorry for what I said about your sister. It was a dick move.”

“She’s done judo since she was nine, so you should be thanking me for not telling her what you said.”

Nino blinked, struggling to keep his eyes open. By now he and Sho were both sitting on the pavement, hands raised above their heads to stay on their handprints. The human body was not meant to stand in one place for eighteen hours, and Nino was discovering that the human body was not really meant to sit on pavement either. Cushions, however, were against contest rules.

“You’re the mouth and she’s the muscle?”

Sakurai’s chuckle had no malice behind it this time. “That seems pretty accurate, yeah. We have a younger brother too, he’s in college now. Not quite sure where he fits in to your equation.”

“He’s the brains, isn’t he?” Nino said, resting his head against the car. “I mean, he’s obviously the one smart enough to not be here at 2:00 in the morning with his hand against a Ferrari.”

It was a few minutes before Sakurai spoke again. “I’m so fucking tired. I’m too old for this shit.”

“How old are you?”

“33.”

“Ah, senpai,” Nino mumbled into the darkness, nodding his head when one of Matsumoto Jun’s minions came by for another one of their hand checks. “I’m 32.”

“Ninomiya, is 30 million yen worth all this?”

“I’ll let you know when I win and they cut the check.”

Sakurai snorted.

—

**SUNDAY — 7:19 AM  
HOUR TWENTY-THREE**

He looked over, seeing that Sakurai had somehow fallen back asleep after their last five minute break. He’d found a way to train his body not to move, planting his hand firmly on the car but still leaning against it and snoring quietly. Nino admired him for that, wondering if he’d practiced ahead of time.

For now, the sun was up and Matsumoto Jun was back, wearing a different suit and looking like he’d somehow been able to leave the premises to take a shower. Asshole, Nino thought bitterly. Each time he went to the Relax Tent now, Ohno kept shaking his head at the sight of him and Aiba. “You guys smell pretty rough,” he said, offering no real encouragement because he’d spent the last day lying on a bench and being woken every hour on the hour by two increasingly smelly guys who kept pawing at the backpack he was holding for sustenance.

As the night went on, more people had dropped out, most of them falling asleep and unable to keep their hands in place. Nino had been woken for the 5:00 AM break just in time to see two of Aiba’s friends at Car #3 walking off in tears. Aiba, however, was somehow leaning against the car, asleep standing up and completely missing his buddies slipping away. Morale dropped at Car #3 after that, and Nino was fairly certain Aiba was in trouble now that his pals were dropping like flies.

The ladies from Car #5 were gone, there was only one person left at Cars #1 and #2, and then it was just Aiba and two of his email friends at #3. That left 7 people in the fight for the Ferrari, and they hadn’t even hit the twenty-four hour mark yet. It looked like it was going to be another hot day, and Matsumoto had come around to each of them personally to let them know that the fifteen minute break they were getting when they hit 9:00 AM was going to include a quick once-over from some nurses. Though they’d all signed waivers, SupaLux wasn’t in the mood to have anyone keel over and die. 

Nino sipped slowly at the bottle of water in his free hand, watching Sakurai sleep. At one of the breaks in the middle of the night he’d changed into a t-shirt. It had gotten a little chilly during the night, and Nino knew he’d been shivering a little. He’d found himself wishing that Sakurai would scoot over, so they could benefit from one another’s body heat. But it hadn’t happened, and Nino doubted the opportunity was going to present itself now that the world was waking up around them.

He thought back to the massage parlor, the pleasurable experience of lying on his belly and feeling the massage therapist’s strong hands pound his flesh into submission. Instead he was now crouched against a fancy sports car, his entire body screaming for relief. All he had to do was take his hand off, to go into the Relax Tent and just sleep until Matsumoto Jun forced him off the premises. It was tempting, just so tempting as the minutes ticked by.

But he felt like he owed it to Sho-san to continue their battle. They’d come this far, so he’d keep going. Besides, he still wanted to see the look on Sakurai Sho’s face when he was completely and utterly defeated. And he’d never see it if he took his hand off the handprint sticker.

He took another sip of water and endured.

—

**SUNDAY — 12:46 PM  
HOUR TWENTY-EIGHT**

Sakurai looked ready to puke beside him, his eyes shut tight as he let out a few quiet moans every minute or so. His hand was still on the car though, and every time Nino managed to get words out, asking him if he was giving up, Sakurai’s reply was simply “you’re not going to win this, Ninomiya.”

Nino suspected it was the udon, the udon Nino had watched Sakurai slurp down in the Relax Tent in two minutes against his sister’s advice because he’d gone through the morning barely coherent on only a muffin and two little bottles of Oronamin C.

He had about fifteen minutes to go before the next five minute break, and Nino was hoping…no, Nino was praying that Sakurai would just lock himself in the port-o-potty and not come back out. It was hot, and unlike the day before, there wasn’t even an occasional breeze floating through Akasaka Sacas. All around them people were shopping, going about their business. A few people poked their heads in at the event area, seeing that some idiots still had their hands stuck to cars, probably telling their kids to not ever do something that stupid or wasteful with their lives.

Nino was just grateful that none of his co-workers from HappyPet.co.jp had dropped by like they’d threatened to do. Even though Nino had put on more deodorant (though he could barely manage to get the top off with his increasingly useless, jelly-like limbs) he still had the sense that he wasn’t smelling too good. He chalked that up to being in the same t-shirt and shorts he’d shown up in the morning before.

As hour twenty-eight came to a close, he saw Aiba stumble a bit as he made his way to the Relax Tent. According to the rules, if they hit forty-eight hours, they wouldn’t have to walk to the Relax Tent. Their helpers would be given permission to stay out by the cars with them, could more quickly get them the water or snacks they needed. The port-o-potties were still a walk, but things would be eased otherwise. Nino doubted forty-eight hours was going to happen, period.

Aiba sat down on the bench, and Nino sat beside him, resting his head on Aiba’s shoulder. “All my friends are gone,” Aiba whined, his voice nothing more than a little squeak, since he’d been talking with his Car #3 friends almost as much as Nino and Sho had been trash talking each other.

“What am I then?”

“My enemy, obviously,” Aiba grumbled. “Still haven’t forgiven you for taking my lip cream.”

“That was ages ago,” Nino shot back, his eyelids heavy as he continued to rest against his friend. “Come on, we should take some Pilot Pals.”

“Those seem like the sort of things that’ll be recalled in a few years because they give people liver failure,” Aiba complained, instead digging around in Ohno’s backpack for some more ibuprofen. Ohno, meanwhile, was sitting in a lawn chair completely knocked out, snoring with a pair of sunglasses on.

Nino knocked back two more of the supplements anyhow. Fuck my liver, he figured, heading for the port-o-potties and a well-earned pee. He found Sakurai Sho leaning against one of the blue potties, groaning. His sister was standing there, arms crossed.

“Let me clean your face, you look awful,” she was saying. It appeared that Sakurai had in fact lost his lunch, if his paler than normal skin was anything to go on.

He ducked into the port-o-potty at the end, and by the time he came out, Sakurai Mai had finally corralled her whining older brother and was wiping his face with the dedication a mother would have for her toddler. By now, Nino wasn’t feeling quite like a grown man either, wishing he had a nice sister to tend to his needs. Okay, Nino did actually have a sister, but he was smart enough not to tell her he was coming here to do this. She’d have put laxatives in his food simply to make him stop participating, killjoy that she was.

Matsumoto had his stupid megaphone again, calling them back, and Nino walked up, patting Sakurai on the shoulder. “Is that it for you then?”

Sakurai just shook his head, psyching himself up by rocking from foot to foot, shaking out his limbs. “Just getting started.”

“You’re both really stupid. I just wanted to take the opportunity to say that,” Sakurai’s sister said, with the same smile of enthusiasm and superiority that her brother had been rocking most of the day yesterday. What a family.

“Thanks. I’m going to get back to kicking your brother’s ass,” Nino said, hoping the Pilot Pals would kick in and get him through the afternoon at least. He doubted he was going to keep down any food, not with the heat settling in, squeezing them all like a boa constrictor.

“Unbelievable,” Sakurai Mai said, giving her brother a half-hearted push in the direction of Car #4.

—

**SUNDAY — 3:27 PM  
HOUR THIRTY-ONE**

Aiba Masaki’s hand fell off the third Ferrari when he fell asleep, his entire body crumbling in a heap on the concrete. “Cut my hand off,” he was deliriously telling Matsumoto Jun minutes later. “Cut my hand off, stick it to the car, okay?”

Nino watched, shaking his head, as Ohno helped an exhausted Aiba limp to the Relax Tent, where he suspected Aiba would be staying for quite some time as he recovered enough to leave and get home without dying. Nino didn’t say anything to his friend as he hobbled by, figuring it would be in poor taste to gloat now.

There were three people left: the twenty-four year old electronics store employee practically sleeping on the hood of car #1, Ninomiya Kazunari, and Sakurai Sho, who was currently keeping himself awake by singing selections from the films of Studio Ghibli. Sho was fumbling his way through the theme from Ponyo in a high-pitched childlike squeal when Nino decided that enough was enough. He had to end this.

“Yo,” Nino said, somehow managing to kick out his foot weakly in Sakurai’s direction. “Yo, I’ve gotta tell you something.”

Sakurai kept singing, though Nino was fairly certain that “I’m going to kick your ass, Ninomiya” was not actually part of the Ponyo lyrics.

“When this is over and I win, how about I take you out to dinner?” He was glad that nobody but Sakurai was liable to hear him, since his voice was pretty much non-existent by now.

Sakurai’s singing slowed considerably but didn’t quite stop.

“Yeah,” Nino slurred, “yeah, we’ll go to dinner and I’ll treat you with my vast winnings from this stupid fucking contest.”

“What’ll we have?” Sho asked, abandoning his Ghibli massacre.

“Hmmmmmmmm.”

“How about…” Sakurai coughed, his flip flops scraping the pavement. “How about when I win, I’ll be the one treating you?”

“You can keep dreaming, you loudmouthed piece of shit.”

Sakurai’s heaving half-sob, half-laugh had Nino breaking down in a giggle fit of his own. “God, I hate you so much,” Sakurai said, and Nino knew it was a lie.

“How about when I win,” Nino started again a few minutes later, “how about when I win, you have to kiss me.”

He could have sworn Sakurai was blushing, but his face had been red for a while on account of him probably being close to heatstroke. “What? No wayyyyyy.”

“Oh yes way. Yes way, if it’ll get you to shut the fuck up.”

“Don’t wanna kiss you.”

“Another lie!” Nino accused him, swatting out with his free hand and connecting with Sakurai’s arm. “You want it bad.” Nino gestured at his sweat-soaked, hunched over, exhausted body. “You want all of this.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Sakurai wheezed. “When I win, you’re going to have to kiss _me_. You look like the type to just…to just slobber like a dog. All tongue. Fucking disgrace.”

“When I win,” Nino continued, chest aching as he laughed, unable to dodge when Sakurai punched him in the shoulder weakly, “when I win, you’re going to get down on your knees and suck my…”

“Stop hitting each other!” came Matsumoto Jun’s voice through the megaphone. “That’s cheating!”

“Fuck you!” Sho and Nino hollered in response.

—

**SUNDAY — 6:50 PM  
HOUR THIRTY-FOUR**

“You just have to take your hand off,” Sho was mumbling. “Just take your hand off.”

“Make me take my hand off, you tank top wearing shitclown.”

“The hell is a shitclown?” Sho whined, laughing so hard it hurt Nino to watch him. 

The two of them were now side by side, sitting on the pavement again with their shoulders touching. Nino had set his free hand down on Sho’s thigh at least thirty minutes ago and had not been asked to move it. His other arm was pretty much numb, his shoulder in so much pain that it had somehow stopped hurting. He felt that at some point in the last few hours he’d left his body a few times, waking from each nap to discover that Sakurai Sho was still beside him, that they still had their hands on the fucking Ferrari, and that this nightmare was still ongoing.

“You. You’re a shitclown. Open a dictionary. You’ll see ‘Sakurai Sho’ and then…and then some shit about Prison Break written beside it.”

“Just take your hand off the car, Ninomiya.”

“I’m going to celebrate my victory by ripping off your clothes. I’m going to buy you with my prize money. I’m going to buy you and you’ll have to do sex things to me. All night long.” Nino had been more eloquent in his life, certainly, but he couldn’t be bothered with such things at present.

Sakurai nudged him with his shoulder. “I’m not for sale. And you know, it would be like, impossible to buy me since the second place finisher doesn’t get shit.”

“God, I want to get in this car and drive over you until you’re as flat as a pancake.”

“Bet you can’t even walk right now.”

“Ugh, I think the first thing I’m driving over is your face, so you’ll shut up!”

“Ninomiya, when the aliens inevitably come to Earth in their alien ship, they’ll look at Japan and see your stupid face and be…be like, assured that there’s no intelligent life on this fucking shitclown planet.”

Nino nudged him in return. “That’s my word. You can’t have it!”

“Take your hand off the fucking car!”

“No!”

“Take your hand off!”

Matsumoto Jun approached in his suit, tapping his toe. “If you gentlemen are finished being stupid, you’re entitled to your five minute break.”

Nino and Sho groaned simultaneously, in pain, agony, and with the stubbornness shared only by two men who had spent the better part of thirty-four hours with their hands on a car.

Matsumoto, probably against his better judgment, held out a hand to help Sakurai up, then Nino. Nino nearly collapsed, but was surprised when Sho got an arm around him. He didn’t quite trust him at first, expecting Sakurai to pull him out of Akasaka Sacas and push him into oncoming traffic, but there wasn’t much Nino could do since he could barely move.

“I got him, I got him,” Sho said, and with remarkable strength, managed to haul Nino all the way to the Relax Tent. 

Aiba and Sakurai Mai were waiting for them, both of them looking like they were ready to commit homicide. “One of you has to give up,” Aiba said, having sent Ohno home two hours earlier. “This is ridiculous!”

“No way,” they replied in tandem. Nino was astonished by how they’d manage to sync up after knowing one another for so short a time. Although by now it felt like he’d known Sakurai Sho for eighty years.

“Is this a man thing? An alpha male thing?” Sho’s sister asked, taking one of the Pilot Pals Aiba held out to her.

“Probably,” Nino replied, and Sho simply shrugged.

“Don’t you have to work tomorrow?” Aiba asked.

“Took the day off,” they both said in tandem once again.

“You guys really should date,” Sakurai Mai declared. “You know, we can hear you shouting at each other about wanting to have sex with the loser in the Ferrari out of spite or whatever twisted stuff your sleep-deprived brains are spitting out.”

Nino’s eyes widened. “That’s just…”

“…trash talk,” Sho finished for him.

“Right,” Aiba said, patting Nino on the head. “Your five minutes are just about over, you need a bathroom break?”

“I need a fucking clone of myself to go put his hand back on that car,” Nino declared. “There is very little liquid left in me at present, as I have sweated it all out. I’ll pee in an hour.”

“I want to spray you both with Febreeze,” Mai said, helping her brother to his feet. “If you win this stupid car, you better be giving half to me for all you’ve made me suffer.”

“Thirty seconds!” Matsumoto Jun announced, a completely unnecessary pronouncement as Sho, Nino, and Car #1 guy limped back across the pavement. The sun would set soon, and Nino knew it had to end. It simply had to end. And then he could spend all of his vacation day Monday sleeping like the dead.

He set his hand down on the Ferrari and Sho did the same. He met Sho’s eyes, seeing something different in them than what he’d seen in the previous thirty-four hours. 

“What?” he asked, feeling like Sho was staring at his mouth. Really staring.

Sho looked away, shrugging. “Nothing.”

—

**SUNDAY — 8:13 PM  
HOUR THIRTY-SIX**

Sho was midway through his eight hundred and seventh (probably) demand that Nino remove his hand from the car when Nino saw his eyelids flutter, saw the whites of his eyes as he gracefully deflated, his hand slipping off the handprint he’d been touching for the last day and a half.

“Sho-kun!” he shouted, lunging for him, helping to cushion his fall by keeping his head from knocking against the pavement. He held onto him tight, panic sending a rush of adrenaline through him, waking him up in a way he hadn’t been since they’d started. He’d been fine, Nino thought, he’d been okay when they’d had the last break. What was wrong?

Matsumoto’s worker bees came buzzing around, along with a few of the nursing staff who’d been on call since 7:00 PM. Nino was kneeling beside him on the ground, shaking him gently. “Sho-kun, wake up! Wake up, come on!”

One of the nurses asked that he step aside, and Nino’s heart was racing in panic as one of the worker bees dumped half a bottle of water on him. It brought him back to consciousness, the water dribbling down his neck, trickling against his t-shirt.

“He’ll be alright?” Nino asked, shaking one of their shoulders. “Is he going to be alright?”

By now Aiba and Sho’s sister had come hurrying over from the Relax Tent, joining the crowd hovering around him. “He’s trying to say something,” one of the nurses said, leaning down, listening to a weak whisper from Sho that none of them could hear. The woman’s face grew confused, and she looked up at Nino.

“Um, he says…and I’m just quoting him, mind you…but he says ‘Ninomiya, you’re a fucking idiot. You took your hand off.’”

Nino’s eyes widened, and he turned, looking over the other cars to see Matsumoto Jun was patting the guy at Car #1 on the back. Guy at Car #1 who still had his hand on the Ferrari.

Nino looked down at Sakurai, clenching his fists since he could do that with both of them again. “Son of a…”

—

**MONDAY — 2:16 PM  
HOUR N/A**

The hospital had insisted on keeping Sho overnight for observation, and Nino was waiting in the lobby when he came slowly walking over after being discharged.

“You,” Sakurai said, pointing at him.

“You,” Nino said, pointing back.

He felt an embarrassing surge of happiness flow through him when Sakurai wrapped his arms around him, hugging him tight. Nino couldn’t help but hug back, closing his eyes and enjoying it. Sho was a great hugger, which didn’t surprise him. The other people in the hospital did their best to ignore the odd scene taking place in the lobby, as Sho clung to him and laughed.

“I told your sister I’d drive you home,” Nino said, a little shyly, once Sakurai had let him go.

Sho raised an eyebrow at him. “In what kind of vehicle? Because if it’s not a Ferrari…”

“Don’t,” Nino interrupted, holding up his hand. “I don’t want to hear that word or any Italian-sounding words for at least a month. My soul is broken, and if I hear it one more time…”

“Ferrari,” Sho said, taunting him, looking healthy and chipper and as obnoxious as he’d been when they’d first met two ridiculously long days earlier. “Ferrari. Uh, pizza! Spaghetti! Fiat!”

“I am going to put you back in the emergency room, you asshole.”

Sho quieted down, snickering to himself as they headed to the hospital’s underground garage, where Nino had parked his piece of shit 1997 Honda Civic. “Thirty million yen,” Sakurai complained, kicking one of Nino’s tires before getting into the car. “Thirty million.”

“You’d have rather I let you crack your skull open?” Nino asked, keeping his keys in his hand and not turning the car on just yet.

“If you were truly committed to victory, then of course you should have!”

Nino rolled his eyes, laughing. “I’ll remember that next time.” He leaned over, grinning from ear to ear. “But anyhow, I’d like to point out that you took your hand off first. I came in second place, and you came in third. So I did technically defeat you.”

Sho leaned over as well, resting an arm around the back of Nino’s seat. “I don’t think that counts.”

“Didn’t we agree that the loser has to kiss the winner?”

“I don’t remember actually agreeing to that formally,” Sho correctly pointed out.

“Well, what if we did it at the same time?” Nino offered. “Kissed, I mean.”

Sho nodded. “Whenever you’re ready then.”

“No, no, please, whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m going to punch you in the…”

But Nino was already reaching for him, yanking Sho by the t-shirt and pulling him close. As expected, the soft, full lips that had spent thirty-six hours spouting nonsense were perfect, so perfectly kissable, allowing Nino to discover the taste of true victory.


End file.
